Britain’s failure to separate church and state as democracy requires has usually been most apparent in the existence of a state church and presence of its clerics among the other unelected legislators in the House of Lords.
Now there is a risk that the Catholic Church will also benefit from a privileged status as Flintshire County Council prepares to spend £55 m of taxpayers’ money for the benefit of that church.
According to the National Secular Society the County Council intends to “allocate £55 million of public funds for a new Catholic school, which will be handed over in its entirety to the Diocese of Wrexham”.
The idea came from the Diocese and would allow the construction of new buildings on a Catholic school site. Other schools would be closed or amalgamated.
Eighty five percent of the money would come from the Welsh government. The rest would be borrowed by the County Council.
Despite the public sources for the funds, the new school would be handed to the Catholic Church.
The school would be free to discriminate against non-Catholic, the majority of the population of Wales, in its admission policies. It would also be allowed to teach Catholic doctrine in sex education classes.
The percentage of Catholic children in Flintshire schools is just 6.9.